Jennifer Brown/The Star-LedgerTo help kick off their new season, the Newark Bears saluted community service at their home opener Friday against the Bridgeport Bluefish. General Colin Powell threw out the ceremonial first pitch, and Grammy-winning legend Patti LaBelle sang the national anthem.

The last chance for professional baseball in Newark began with a ceremony designed to shock and awe, one that nearly ended with a drenched four-star general and an unhappy iconic singer.

There was Colin Powell, looking sharp in a Bears jacket, waiting to deliver the first pitch. There was Patti LaBelle, in high heels and a black dress, preparing to sing the national anthem.

It was as good a one-two punch to open a season as you'll see anywhere in the majors, better than even the Mets and Yankees. Then, as if the clouds had conspired against this bold launch to save a sport, the rain started to fall on Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium.

Officials scrambled to find Powell an umbrella. LaBelle ran for cover inside, and some observers feared she might not return. The weather held up long enough for her to reappear and wow the crowd, but if the Bears' new owners needed a reminder of the difficult task ahead, they got one.

The Bears have tried and failed to carve out a successful home in the city for a decade now. They were rescued from bankruptcy court last fall with the best intentions and ambitious plans, and nearly everyone agrees if the team fails this time, it will be done for good.

This is it.

"I guess we like a challenge," said Jim Wankmiller, CEO of the Bases Loaded Group. "We want people to come here and say, 'Hey, I'm going to give this another chance.'"

Wankmiller is a former corporate lawyer from Philadelphia who could work as a body double for vice president Joe Biden. His partners are Tom Cetnar, a former Newark cop who once served as general manager for the team, and Gary Veloric, who founded the J.G. Wentworth investment company.

It was Cetnar who convinced the other two to sign on. He had just left a meeting with prior owner Marc Berson, who had lost millions on the team. Berson had been blunt, telling the Newark native not to gamble on the bankrupt franchise, but Cetnar had a vision.

He saw the Bears as finally embracing the people who live around the ballpark, not the ones who live in the suburbs around the city. Veloric toured the ballpark the next day, seeing for the first time the New York skyline over the outfield wall.

"You really think this could work?" he asked Cetnar.

"I know it can work," Cetnar replied.

"I'm in."

Those two words have become the official slogan for the team, and the owners' only hope is to convince others to buy in, too. The Bears have to be more than just a minor-league baseball team to be a success. They have to become part of the fabric of a community.

They plan to do that by reaching out to the community, something Cetnar believes has never fully been done before. They hope to use their experience in the entertainment business -- the three men are also opening a nightclub in Atlantic City and own a music company -- to attract shows, because it will take more than just 71 baseball games a year to make this work.

"We'll run it as a business where the previous owners ran it as a hobby," Cetnar said. "I'm a Newark kid. I believe in the city, I always have. I believe this city is going to come back and we're going to help it get there."

But anyone who has followed this team knows that the best intentions have always been at the center of the team's attempts to create a following. Since arriving in the summer 1999 to bring pro baseball back to a city where it once thrived, the Bears have tried just about everything.

They tried signing some big-name players, washed-up stars from the Yankees including Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco, and that didn't attract enough fans to fill the ballpark.

They tried fielding a championship team, winning the Atlantic League title in 2007, and that wasn't enough to bring in people from the surrounding neighborhoods.

They tried peppering the city with free and discounted tickets, hoping to convince the white-collar workers to stop in for a ballgame on their way home, and that didn't work, either.

The one change that might have an impact, affiliation with the Mets or the Yankees as part of their farm systems, is still just a pipe dream. The team has looked into that before without any success.

What's left?

"I think the previous owners felt an entitlement, that people would just come," Cetnar said. "I feel like you have to ask them to come, not only ask them to support you, but support them. I think that's going to be the difference."

So as part of their ceremony on Opening Day on Friday night, Powell threw out the first pitch with a backdrop of Little Leaguers from the North Ward. The stadium was filled with school and church groups from the city, and fireworks shot off from the outfield wall and LaBelle sang the anthem.

On the first night, the new owners survived a bad break with the weather to put on a good show, but they'll have to overcome more than raindrops to save baseball for this city. Now the hard part begins.